Cantonese cuisine combines the characteristics of local flavors from Nanhai, Panyu, Dongguan, Shunde, Xiangshan, Siyi and Bao'an with the strengths of provincial dishes from Beijing, Suzhou, Huaihua and Hangzhou as well as Western dishes, blending them into a single entity to form a family of its own.
Cantonese cuisine takes the strengths of a hundred schools of thought, uses a wide range of materials, selects rare and exquisite ingredients, and is good at innovation in imitation, according to the preferences of diners and cooking.
Cooking techniques are varied and changeable, with a wide range of strange materials.
In the cooking to stir-fry, explosion-based, both braising, frying, baking, pay attention to the clear and not light, fresh and not vulgar, tender and not raw, oil and not greasy, there are "five nourishment" (fragrant, loose, soft, fat, thick), "six flavors" (sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, salty, fresh) The first time I saw it, it was a very good one, and it was a very good one.
Strong seasonality, summer and fall is still light, winter and spring for rich.
The famous dishes of Cantonese cuisine are: chicken braised snake, dragon and tiger, roast suckling pig, chicken, salt-baked chicken, white burnt shrimp, white cut chicken, roast goose, etc..
Cantonese cuisine is the representative cuisine of China in foreign countries.
The practice of Cantonese cuisine is more complex, fine, time-consuming, labor-intensive, high per capita consumption, which is the reason why Cantonese restaurants in many cities, not as many as Sichuan restaurants.
Cantonese cuisine is a culture, an atmosphere, a rendering, a harmony, a folklore, a color, and a reflection of health standards.
Cantonese cuisine has a long history.
It has the same **** of Chinese food culture as other regional diets and cuisines.
As early as in ancient times, the ancient Yue people in Lingnan had a close interaction with the Central Plains of Chu.
With the historical changes and dynastic changes, many people in the Central Plains to escape the war and the south, the Han-Yue ethnic groups are increasingly integrated.
The southward movement of the culture of the Central Plains, the Central Plains food production techniques, cooking utensils, eating utensils and Baiyue agriculture and fisheries rich products combined, which is the origin of Cantonese food.
Cantonese cuisine originated in the Han Dynasty by virtue of this history.
The famous historian Zhao Liren considers Cantonese opera and Cantonese cuisine to be China's national treasures, both of which have an indissoluble relationship with the Xinhai Revolution.
If you look at the recipes from 1912-1913, you can see that the colors of the dishes were very close to the style of Cantonese cuisine today.
At this point, "Cantonese cuisine" took shape and continued to evolve.
Guangdong, which is at the crossroads of Chinese and Western cultures, North and South cultures, inland civilization and ocean civilization, once again led the trend of the times in the historical change of the Xinhai Revolution, and the spirit of Ho Tzu-yen's "change, innovation, advancing with the times, and never losing" in the "Yungong culture" is still alive and well.
The formation and development of Cantonese cuisine is closely related to the geography, economic conditions and customs of Guangdong.
Guangdong is located in the subtropics, near the South China Sea, abundant rainfall, evergreen, rich in produce.
Therefore, the diet of Guangdong has always been unique.
As early as the Western Han Dynasty, "Huainanzi - Spirit of the chapter" contains the fine and extensive selection of Cantonese cuisine, and it is conceivable that more than a thousand years ago, the Cantonese people have been able to use different cooking methods to cook different flavors.
Before that, the Tang poet Han Yu, who had been relegated to Chaozhou, described in his poems how the people of Chaozhou had a bad time eating horseshoe crabs, snakes, cattails, frogs, octopuses, and jiangyaozhu (江瑶柱), among dozens of other exotic foods.
But by the time of the Southern Song Dynasty, octopus and other seafood was already a delicacy in many local cuisines.
In terms of ingredients and flavors, raw food was used.
Later, there were fewer raw pigs, cows, sheep and deer, but the habit of eating raw fish fillets, including raw fish congee, has been preserved to this day.
And the white cut chicken, which is only cooked, with a little blood on the thigh bone, is still the same today.
Cantonese cuisine is characterized by exquisite knife work, complementary ingredients, and a taste that is clear but not bland.
Cantonese cuisine is also good at taking the strengths of each family, for my use, always learning new.
Suzhou cuisine in the famous dish squirrel Mandarin fish, renowned north and south of the Yangtze River, but can not be on the Cantonese banquet.
Although Cantonese people like to eat rat meat, but the name of the rat is not in the hall.
Famous Cantonese chefs use skillful knife work to change the fish into a small chrysanthemum type, called chrysanthemum fish.
Such a change, can be a piece of a mouthful, with chopsticks and knife and fork to eat are convenient, hygienic, Soviet cuisine after the transformation, it became the Cantonese cuisine.
In addition, Cantonese cooking methods in the bubble, grill, grill, Sichuan is from the northern dishes of explosion, grill, grill, blanch transplanted.
The new method of frying and deep-frying is to learn from similar methods of Western cuisine after the improvement of the formation.
But the transplantation of Cantonese cuisine, not rigidly, is a combination of Guangdong wide range of raw materials, tender texture, people's tastes like fresh and new features, to develop, touching on the same.
Such as the northern cuisine of the steak, usually the raw material is flavored, baked to crispy, push the gravy to hit the bright oil on the plate, known as clear steak.
And the Cantonese cuisine steak, but the raw materials are boiled or steamed to greasy, and then push the broad gravy steak on the performance of more material steak.
Representatives of the eight treasures grilled duck, chicken grilled dried meat and so on.
In addition to the formal dishes, Guangdong snacks, dim sum is also exquisite, and food customs around the world also has its own unique features, such as Guangzhou's morning tea, Teochew's Kung Fu Tea, these food customs have gone beyond the scope of the "eat", become the food culture of Guangdong.
Guangdong's food culture and the Central Plains of the same lineage.
One of the important reasons is that historically there have been a number of another dynasty of mainlanders.
Successive dynasties sent to rule Guangdong and deported officials, etc., brought the food culture of the north, during which there are many masters of the official chef or their skills passed on to their local counterparts, or set up their own stores in the marketplace to make a living, the food culture of the various places directly introduced to the people of Lingnan, so that it has become an important part of the Cantonese cuisine.
After the Han Dynasty, Guangzhou became the transportation hub of the Western and Eastern sea routes; in the Tang Dynasty, most foreign merchants gathered in Yangcheng, and merchant ships arrived in convoys.
At that time, the economy of the Guangzhou area was developing faster compared to the inland places.
After the Southern Song Dynasty, the techniques and characteristics of Cantonese cuisine became increasingly sophisticated.
This has to do with the fact that the Song Dynasty moved south and many imperial and government chefs gathered in Guangdong, especially concentrated in Yangcheng.
Starting from the Tang Dynasty, Guangzhou became the main port of entry and exit trade in China, and was a world-famous port.
After the Song and Yuan Dynasties, Guangzhou became a port and harbor city where internal and external trade was concentrated, and commerce became increasingly prosperous, which led to the development of food service as a commercial industry, and provided a very important condition and place for the growth of Cantonese food, especially Cantonese cuisine.
The Ming and Qing dynasties were a period of real maturity and development for Cantonese cuisine, Cantonese desserts, and Cantonese-style food.
At this time, Guangzhou had already become a big commercial city, and Cantonese cuisine, Cantonese desserts and Cantonese-style food had really become a system.
The downtown area was dotted with teahouses, hotels, restaurants and eateries, and each eatery competed with each other for the abundance of food and styles of food, which the world said, and gradually there was "food in Guangzhou".
The influence of Cantonese cuisine is more extensive.
According to some newspapers and magazines, there are nearly 10,000 Chinese restaurants in the United States; 4,000 in the United Kingdom; more than 2,000 in France and Holland; and no less than thousands in Japan.
Most of the Chinese restaurants in these places are Cantonese-style teahouses and restaurants, and business is booming.
Sydney, Australia, in the "Chinatown" under the influence of tea has become a specialized term, where the city of Sydney to visit the people, all to a "Chinatown" to enjoy a Cantonese tea dining flavor for the fashion.
Cantonese cuisine, with its unique light flavor, leads the way ***, with the reputation of "food in Guangzhou" known throughout the world.
"Food in Guangzhou" can not be separated from the Guangdong tea, it is actually a meal in disguise, restaurants, hotels, teahouses are set up in the morning, afternoon and evening tea, tea and talk business, listen to the news, will be friends together.
Guangdong drinking tea is inseparable from the tea, snacks, congee, powder, noodles, and some small dishes.
It is worth mentioning Teochew work tea, it spare special purple sand teapot, white porcelain cups and oolong tea, the amount of tea, tea, tea soup is strong with bitter, aftertaste.
Guangdong dim sum is one of the three major Chinese pastry specialties, a long history, many varieties, colorful, beautifully shaped and novel flavors, distinctive.
Guangdong congee is characterized by congee rice boil bloom and pay attention to seasoning, slippery chicken congee, fish congee, congee and the first congee and boat congee.
Guangdong noodles for Shahe noodles, soft with tough.
Guangdong noodles are best known as "Yifu noodles".
Cantonese cuisine is also pursuing the "new school".
But thousands of years of the formation of a wide range of materials, dishes pay attention to the fresh, crisp, tender, slippery southern flavor of the innovation of the change is very deep impact.
"All changes do not differ from it", the traditional beauty of thin-skinned fresh shrimp dumplings, dry-steamed siu mai, glutinous rice chicken, E Sister powdered fruit, Lai pro-autumn taro horn, horseshoe cake, barbecued pork buns, crab roe buns, creamy egg rolls, as well as snacks intestinal meat noodles, fried rice noodles, Boat Boy Noodles, and the first congee, pig red soup, Lunjiao cake, turnip cake, salty water horn, phoenix claw, marinated beef mince, thin crisp, white sugar Shawong The famous snacks such as thin crisps, sugar salon, Dechang salty pancake and Daliang pansand are even more everlasting.
This shows that the roots of Guangzhou cuisine is very deep soil.
Cantonese cuisine is a combination of Kyoto style, Gusu style and Yangzhou style, which is famous both at home and abroad.